The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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spear which he had bought for his son’s service in the army was said to have blazed during the day for more than two hours in such a way that the fire consumed none of it.” 207 From this passage previous research deduced two principles: a prodigy could not be accepted if it had occurred in a private (privatus) place and consequently had to be in a public (publicus) place. It could not either be accepted if it occurred in a foreign (peregrinus) place, it had to be in a Roman (romanus) place. 208 That is not altogether unreasonable assumptions. The problem is that it does not account for all the known prodigies, since there are examples of prodigies occurring in both foreign and private places. Let us start with the private prodigies. Until recently it has been completely ignored that there are examples of private prodigies (Rasmussen 2003: 220; Rosenberger 1998: 29, n.52). A small number of prodigies occur in houses which are private areas (Liv.41.16.6; Obs.51; Obs. 53). Another example of private prodigies is prodigies of hermaphrodites or monstrous births. They must likewise have occurred on private ground (MacBain 1982: 27). We can therefore conclude that the rule that prodigies had to occur in a public place is not a necessary rule, although it does fit most occurrences. The Romans did distinguish between foreign land (ager peregrinus) and Roman land (ager Romanus), but the Romans also operated with many other categories in between that are difficult to put a clear juridical term on. The individual relations between a city and Rome could be very different. Prodigies are reported from all these different categories of places. 209 Attempts have been made to reconcile the discrepancy between the rule and the known prodigies. Franz Luterbacher thought that the distinction was just not very rigid (Luterbacher 1967: 30). He has, though, been criticized for this since it is an ad hoc explanation. Elizabeth Rawson explained the discrepancy by stipulating that it came from the integration of local prodigy lists into the Roman ones after the areas had become Roman (Rawson 1991a: 5-9). Unfortunately there is no evidence of such local collections. Bruce MacBain thinks that the 207 Duo non suscepta prodigia sunt, alterum, quod in private loco factum esset, palmam enatam in inpluvio suo T. Marcius Figulus nuntiabiat, alterum, quod in loco peregrino; Fregellis in domo L.Atrei hasta, quam filio militia emerat, interdiu plus duas horas arsisse, ita ut nihil eius ambureret ignis, dicebatur (Liv.43.13.6). These two prodigies are listed at the end of the other prodigies of the year. There are several puzzling features, most importantly that Livy or his source overlooks, as pointed out by (Rasmussen 2003: 219-223), that they are both actually private prodigies. 208 As demonstrated by Susanne William Rasmussen, this is still the most common view (Rasmussen 2003: 219- 223) 209 Bruce MacBain has shown that 21 % of the prodigies from outside of Rome come from foreign land (MacBain 1982: 25). For a thorough treatment of the question see (Szemler 1972: 34-36). 210
distinction between public and private, and Roman and foreign had simply disappeared (MacBain 1982: 28). This does not, however, occur in Roman society in general. This solution therefore raises more questions than it answers: Why would the senate suddenly stop making such discriminations, which are absolutely central to Roman culture all the way through the republic and well into the principate? We can conclude that previous efforts have not been able to elucidate the basic principles behind acceptance of prodigies. Since the theoretical model proposed here assumes that omens activate an inference of a counterintuitive agent, and since prodigies were often explicitly conceptualized as communications, most often warnings, from the gods, it would be natural to assume that they followed principles from normal communication. According to the relevance theory of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, reviewed above in chapter 4, a communicative stimulus should be maximally relevant. A communicative stimulus is interpreted as being the most relevant the communicator could have chosen to communicate his informative intention to the interpreter. Given that the informative intention of a prodigy is already known to be a warning to the Roman state, the most relevant communicative stimulus is one that involves the Roman state. We should therefore expect that the stronger the connection of a prodigy to the Roman state, the more likely it was that it would be interpreted as a prodigy to the Roman state. The two previously suggested principles can be derived from this principle since public as opposed to private and Roman and as opposed to foreign land more directly involve the Roman state. We can therefore explain the two rejected prodigies by reference to only one rule and not two. It might also explain all the excepted prodigies. An all round rough measure of the degree of connection to the Roman state would be simple distance to Rome. Based on the assumption that prodigies were taken as communicative stimuli from a counterintuitive agent and the principle of optimal relevance, we should expect it to be more probable that a prodigy was accepted the closer it was to Rome. Fortunately this can be tested since we know the place, and therefore the distance to Rome, for many prodigies. Consequently, we would expect the number of prodigies accepted to increase the closer we get to Rome. Mathematically that is a correlation between distance and number of prodigies. 211
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The Dissemination of Divination in
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Chapter 8 - Sources to Roman Divina
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List of Figures Figure 3.1. Types o
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Acknowledgements Certain parts of t
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people. It is almost unanimously ag
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that precludes the investigation fr
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asic cognitive functions could acco
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Lienard & Feeney 2006), prayer (Bar
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“the making clear of something”
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In chapter 5 it is argued that obla
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Chapter 1 - History of divination a
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with *-eu appears in two forms. One
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involving the Korinthian Polyidos.
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The 15 th edition of the Encyclopae
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Chapter 2 - A History of Modern Div
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and games of chance a secondary dev
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causes. This is also the case conce
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Evans-Pritchard also uses a lot of
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through casting the decision “upo
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transformed and new relations are g
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Somewhat between the great currents
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efutations. With this article Zeitl
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the function of divination. Special
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Chapter 3 - Definition and typology
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means signs obtained from the gods
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producer. In this case we see that
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Chapter 4 - Impetrative Divination
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ontogenetic histories. Some feeling
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direct people in their life. It can
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or potential misfortune or lack of
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Before making blood-brotherhood Bef
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It was argued that emotion was cent
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Figure 4.2. Intentional action It i
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Figure 4.4. Ritualized action in di
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was the counterintuitive agent who
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education. 43 These problems requir
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Credibility 4,5 4 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1
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Clairvoyant, and Astrologist. There
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Materials A booklet similar to the
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Summary The thesis of this chapter
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present existence, as the slogan go
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Let us presently consider how hyper
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1963). Michotte had subjects watch
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another that they were playing agai
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monkeys. There is evidence that in
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Sperber and Wilson programmatically
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humans communicate by producing sig
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Let us consider some examples of th
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Henrich and Gil-White supply precis
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communicator (T.S. Elliot) or a mil
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professors are not routinely attrib
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thought it most likely the main cha
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Chapter 5 - Oblative divination 82
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her life”. 85 In the example the
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in the city. To most modern people
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answer. In oblative divination the
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Figure 6.1. brings together the obs
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questions on how much disease there
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While many good and detailed models
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Unexpected event Figure 6.3. Web of
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Chapter 7 - Research history on Rom
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assumption is that divination, espe
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It can be seen that Latte's as well
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oth shared the same attitude toward
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vastly different views on what legi
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& Scheid 1994; Linder & Scheid 1993
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the observation. If the fear thesis
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Based on the evidence available to
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linear regression analysis was made
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criticism of it. His antiquarian cu
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Post-republican writers Verrius Fla
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M. Servius Honoratus Marius Servius
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The only full description we have o
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called interpretes Iovi, interprete
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All places where auspices should be
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anyhow. There is therefore no reaso
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The credibility value of the greate
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according to Cicero, the point is t
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Utility and Credibility value The a
Page 159 and 160: History Since it is mentioned in th
Page 161 and 162: Technique Let us consider public so
Page 163 and 164: Private sortition Private sortition
Page 165 and 166: shuffled the lots and drew one 149
Page 167 and 168: Extispicy is a form of divination w
Page 169 and 170: public use of extispicy are perform
Page 171 and 172: (North 1990). In Etruria these indi
Page 173 and 174: Sibylline books The Sibylline Books
Page 175 and 176: The word vates can probably be trac
Page 177 and 178: counterintuitive agent. In all the
Page 179 and 180: Howevere, there are practices in wh
Page 181 and 182: Technique Descriptives Credibility
Page 183 and 184: History Let us see how these observ
Page 185 and 186: Summary To summarize the conclusion
Page 187 and 188: as specified in equation 3, but it
Page 189 and 190: Dissemination Private sortition Pub
Page 191 and 192: “may the gods avert (bad) omens
Page 193 and 194: excelled every race and every natio
Page 195 and 196: calf ran away and spattered many of
Page 197 and 198: the cultural model of omens, identi
Page 199 and 200: very widespread 196 and along with
Page 201 and 202: Although there is great imprecision
Page 203 and 204: 1,2 1 0,4 0,2 0 Omen words in Greek
Page 205 and 206: e distinguished: nuntiatio, relatio
Page 207 and 208: ating whether a prodigy involved a
Page 209: Year BCE 218-190 189-162 160-132 13
Page 213 and 214: 140,00 120,00 100,00 80,00 60,00 40
Page 215 and 216: two seem to have been used in the c
Page 217 and 218: 8) Sacrificia vetusta occultaque mi
Page 219 and 220: The actual interpretations we hear
Page 221 and 222: this type among the prodigia, where
Page 223 and 224: consideration here the cultural mod
Page 225 and 226: encounter of people using it to a g
Page 227 and 228: action. It was argued that these re
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Page 231 and 232: practices that did not survive were
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Page 235 and 236: Appendix 1 The Kurabi among the Mwa
Page 237 and 238: Appendix 2 The Guzul In Central Aus
Page 239 and 240: Appendix 4 Roman Words Omen Prodigi
Page 241 and 242: Theocritus 21261 1.88 1.88 0 0 0.32
Page 243 and 244: Moon fell down Capua Goats got wool
Page 245 and 246: Note: *this is possibly not a separ
Page 247 and 248: Temple of Ceres struck by lightning
Page 249 and 250: Sheep with two heads born Suessa Pi
Page 251 and 252: 12 year old hermaphrodite discovere
Page 253 and 254: Cows were talking Campania Bronze c
Page 255 and 256: *This prodigy may be the same as th
Page 257 and 258: 156 Storm destroys sacred places on
Page 259 and 260: * Since the Graecostasis was right
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An owl was seen on the Capitol Roma
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* Rasmussen counts as two (Rasmusse
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Sun formed a disc like a shield at
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Two calfs were found in the entrail
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Fire in the sky Note: While this pr
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Tornado ripped of roofs Bridge coll
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Doors to the temple of Fortuna open
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Appendix 6 Examples of counterintui
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Bibliography Primary Sources 220 La
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Secondary sources Abbink, J. 1993:
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Bering, J. M. and Johnson, D. P. 20
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Callaway, H. 1970: The Religious Sy
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Dumezil, G. 1970: Archaic Roman Rel
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Guillaumont, F. 1984: Philosophe et
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Koenig, M. A., Clement, F., and Har
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Luterbacher, F. 1967: Der Prodigien
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Patton, L. L. 2000: "The Magic in M
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Schilling, R. 1979: "A propos des "
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Taylor, L. R. 1949: Party Politics
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Woodward, J. 2000: "Explanation and
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Oprindeligt blev divination forklar
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menneskelig perception eller ræson
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I kapitel 6 sammenlignes observatio
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Den sidste ligning udtrykker, at sa
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The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

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